I used to be Britain's longest-running wrestling blogger. Then I got a proper job.

Friday, 16 September 2011

My Refuse Collection Service is Rubbish

Back in the good old days rubbish bins in the Suffield Park area of Cromer used to be collected very early in the morning. A couple of chaps would come out and take our bins to the kerb, with the truck coming around an hour or so later to collect the rubbish. This was normally done by 9am at the latest. It was the same when we switched over to wheelie bins, except that we had to take the bins out ourselves.

We really couldn't complain about the service. Then the Kier Group won the contract.

Immediately you could see the difference. One of the first jobs you could do during the day was the go out and collect your empty wheelie bin but now you had to wait until 1pm in the afternoon, if you were lucky.
But it was on this past bank holiday week that we found out just how good at their job the Kier guys were. Our bin was meant to be collected a day later, on the Friday, because of the bank holiday. However, when our bin wasn't emptied we rang Kier to find out what was happening. We were told that their men were behind on their work, and because it was a Friday they had finished work early, and that our bin wouldn't be emptied until the following day.
This seemed very odd to me. They were behind schedule but were still allowed home early?
Earlier today (Thursday September 15th) I went out about 12.30pm. My bin hadn't been emptied, and a few hours later while walking back up Links Avenue I saw why Kier's service was so poor and so slow.
You see, as I walked along the road I saw just one man taking just one bin at a time to the truck for emptying. The truck would then drive just a few feet to the next house and again only one bin would be emptied into the truck. It's something that was repeated over and over again, despite the fact that the truck was capable of emptying two bins at a time. My bin was finally emptied at around 3.30pm.

This was in stark contrast to what happened before. Men would come around to gather our bins together. One man would empty two bins into the truck at a time, while another would go off and get another two bins for unloading. It's something I watched time and time again, and it was a system that worked.

To say that I'm not impressed with the Kier Group would be an understatement. This is the same group that took over the running of the putting course in North Lodge Park and decided not to open over the Easter weekend, the first big bank holiday weekend of the year, shooting themselves in the foot and costing them quite a bit of money in the process.

Their bin collection service is, to pardon the pun, rubbish, and it's getting worse by the week.